Peter Krauth discusses what he believes is ahead for the dollar and gold. After taking it on the chin for the last six months, the U.S. dollar now looks set to rally.Gold is being dented, having recently traded back below $1,900.Meanwhile, the dollar is already up nearly 1.5% since the start of September. That's a big deal for the world's reserve currency.But if you consider what's happened to th...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Tuesday September 22 that are worth another look.Swiss stainless steelmaker Schmolz + Bickenbach has had its proposal to change the company name approved by shareholders, it said in a press release on Monday September 21.Read More

The Chinese steel engine that powered on for a good six months after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic is finally starting to lose steam, according to market sources.Booming domestic demand and equally strong local steel prices had been the savior of steelmakers everywhere in the second and most of the third quarter of 2020, which either indirectly improved sentiment in Asia or opened arbitrage w...Read More

China has released the 12th batch of solid import licenses approving an additional 2,610 tonnes of ferrous scrap, according to a notice reported by China Solid Waste & Chemical Management (CSWCM) on Thursday September 17. China has approved 23,100 tonnes of ferrous scrap imports to date this year, the data at CSWCM shows. Major buyers in this round include casting plants and trading houses in east...Read More

Gold has been consolidatinghigh since early August, when it rocketed parabolic on colossal gold-ETFdemand.  That 6-week-old sideways drift hasworked off some greed and overboughtness, but plenty still remains.  So gold isn’t out of the woods yet for thisessential sentiment-rebalancing selloff. With residual overboughtness still extreme, gold faces considerabledownside risk hea...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Tuesday September 22 that are worth another look.Swiss stainless steelmaker Schmolz + Bickenbach has had its proposal to change the company name approved by shareholders, it said in a press release on Monday September 21.Read More

The London Metal Exchange's three-month prices for copper and nickel were once more trading in positive territory during the afternoon session on Tuesday September 22, retracing losses made on the previous day's slump in US equities values.Copper and nickel futures are both particularly sensitive to the macro-economic environment at present, with both metals' LME three-month prices falling on the...Read More

The mood in the CIS export billet market has become downbeat in the second half of September, amid a lack of purchasing interest on the customers' side.Fastmarkets' daily steel billet index, export, fob Black Sea, CIS, was $411 per tonne on Tuesday September 22, down by $1 per tonne day on day.Offers from mills were scarce, varying within the range of $415-420 per tonne fob Black Sea. Sellers refe...Read More

The recent uptrend in the CIS export steel slab market persisted in the week to Monday September 21, driven by demand in Turkey, Fastmarkets has learnt.The weekly price assessment for steel slab, export, fob Black Sea, CIS, was $460-472 per tonne on September 22, up from $460-465 per tonne week on week.A cargo of Ukraine-origin slab was heard sold to the Middle Eastern country at slightly above $4...Read More

Here are five Fastmarkets stories you might have missed on Tuesday September 22 that are worth another look.Swiss stainless steelmaker Schmolz + Bickenbach has had its proposal to change the company name approved by shareholders, it said in a press release on Monday September 21.Read More

Plans for a London Metal Exchange spot trading platform have sparked intense debate within the aluminium industry. But opponents and supporters don't necessarily fall into the camps that one might expect. For starters, a decision by the LME not to change its futures contract, establish a new green aluminium contract or set thresholds to define what constitutes low-carbon metal is proving key in st...Read More

Sometimes it is better to let a situation speak for itself. Alcoa, Rio Tinto Aluminium, Novelis, Constellium, Arconic, Kaiser Aluminum, Tri-Arrows Aluminum, American Metal Chemical Corp, Hydro Extrusion North America, JW Aluminum, Real Alloy, Reynolds Consumer Products, Scepter, Silberline Manufacturing Co, Smelter Service Corp and Wagstaff. The US Aluminum Association, which represents more than...Read More

The London Metal Exchange is looking for ways to boost its options market, which has been struggling for some years to replicate the growth seen in the same sector among its peers.The exchange has launched a consultation, scheduled to end on July 29, on developing electronic options via a new trading platform while retaining its current inter-office options trading structure.Items up for discussio...Read More

The London Metal Exchange's three-month prices for copper and nickel were once more trading in positive territory during the afternoon session on Tuesday September 22, retracing losses made on the previous day's slump in US equities values.Copper and nickel futures are both particularly sensitive to the macro-economic environment at present, with both metals' LME three-month prices falling on the...Read More

Seaborne cfr coking coal prices climbed by more than 2% day on day on Tuesday September 22 and, despite some doubts about Chinese steel mill import quotas and the idea that prices were too high already, most market participants expected to see an uptrend. Fastmarkets indicesPremium hard coking coal, fob DBCT: $129.01 per tonne, up $0.22 per tonne Premium hard coking coal, cfr Jingtang: $...Read More

The London Metal Exchange will add to its aluminium pricing offering with a new cash-settled European duty-paid aluminium premium contract settled against Fastmarkets' benchmark Rotterdam premium. Speaking at the Fastmarkets International Aluminium Conference on Tuesday September 22, Alex Shaw, head of product development and research at the LME, said the exchange will launch the contract in 2021....Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of base metals analysts are ready to view.Aluminium: SHFE tailwind for LME pricesAs we are entering the traditional strong demand season, we expect Chinese aluminium demand to show further recovery, and we expect demand from existing end-user sectors, new infrastructure projects and the export sector to show some increases. As a result, we believe that S...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of base metals analysts are ready to view, including an upgrade to our aluminium price forecasts.Aluminium: Price forecasts raisedWe correctly expected the macro reflationary theme to raise the prices for all base metals but, with it being the base metal with by far the weakest fundamentals, we had expected the price of aluminium to underperform relative...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view.These include an increase in our copper mine disruption estimates, upgrades to our production outlook for Indonesian nickel pig iron (NPI), a smaller refined zinc surplus, and an upgrade to our zinc price forecasts.Aluminium: Big disconnect between price and fundamentalsAluminium has extended its uptrend on the London Metal...Read More

The latest forecasts from Fastmarkets' team of analysts are ready to view. We also review our price forecasting accuracy for the second quarter 2020.Q2 2020 price forecast performance review According to the results of Fastmarkets' Apex for the second quarter of 2020 published this week, Fastmarkets' base metals research team was the second most accurate price forecaster for nickel (99.06%), lead...Read More